Calder: Un effet du japonais

Alexander Calder (1898-1976) is considered one of the most important artists of the 20th century, primarily for works that revolutionised modern conceptions of sculpture. This US-born artist fused artistic sensibility with his engineering training to invent the kinetic abstract mobile: the kind of moving sculpture with which he is most closely associated.

Calder’s dynamic metal-based creations loom magnificently large at what is the artist’s first Tokyo solo exhibition in almost 35 years, alongside static sculptures dubbed ‘stabiles’, as well as oil paintings and works on paper. ’Calder: Un effet du japonais’ explores, via around 100 pieces, the enduring resonance that this modernist artist’s work has with Japanese aesthetics and traditions. Though Calder never travelled to Japan, and avoided explaining the inspirations and concepts behind his work, a Japanese-style sensibility is perceptible in pieces such as 1963’s ‘The Pagoda’, a 10ft-high stabile featured here.

Other highlights reveal how Calder’s mobiles and stabiles embraced the extremes of stark all-black rendering on the one hand and pops of primary colours on the other. ‘Black Beast’ (1940) is a 14ft wide and 9ft tall stabile with a foreboding air, while ‘Untitled’ (1956) is a hanging mobile whose arrangement of leaf-like sheet-metal shapes demonstrates the artist’s pursuit of what he called ‘disparity’, over symmetry. The latter work is also a great example of how Calder’s mobiles can appear subtly different with each viewing, thanks to their multiple moving elements.

A special touch to this exhibition is given by the spatial design, which combines geometric principles favoured by Calder with references to modern Japanese architecture and materials.

The exhibition is closed on June 4, as well as July 2 and Aug 6.